How many "polygons" does my model have?
Whenever you have a "poly limit" it is referring to triangles. You need look at Blender's Tris count.

A "face" is just two or more triangles (quad has two triangles, an N-gon has more) so the face count is not the real number.
If you make a model with only triangles, the face count and the Tris count will be the same.  

Notice the face and triangle count in the images below.
This first cube is a default cube with 6 quads. The other cube has been triangulated. Notice the face and tri count match.
 

This is an object consisting of a single N-gon, and nothing more.